Generally, the RCA served Central Worlds as a repository in case of just such an emergency as had arisen at Nekkar. The inability of individuals to propagate the race. An appeal had reached the Main RCA on Earth to locate and deliver 300,000 fertilized ova of genetic type similar to the Nekkarese, RCA had 30,000 on hand and had forwarded the call to all major RCA banks throughout the Central Worlds asking for contributions, which the KH-834 would pick up and deliver to Nekkar.
The tape ended with a silent hold cue to Helva. It took her a moment to realize that, though she had the mission information, she had received nothing on her new partner. No matter how temporary this assignment, it would take time. Some basic biography would be essential for Helva to function effectively in partnership with Kira. Obediently she cut the tape, activating a record-store of the balance for later playback. It would appear there were many unusual factors in this assignment. Central Worlds moves in mysterious ways, itself to sustain.
"Well," Helva exclaimed, to end the brief silence after the mission portion of the tape was silent. "I hadn't expected motherhood at my tender age. I see I have understimated the demands Central Worlds makes of its minions."
Her attempt at levity touched off a violent response in Kira and Helva wondered what under a first magnitude star had she got for a partner.
"Read this tape on me before we proceed with the mission," Kira said in a dead voice, all her previous vivacity wiped out.
She slammed the store button, shunting the mission tape to the ship files, and inserted a second reel. With an almost savage twist she turned on the audio, sitting stiffly erect and motionless as the tape played back, either deaf or impervious to the biograph.
Kira Falernova Mirsky of Canopus had finished all but a year of brawn training. She came of a Service-oriented family that had brought up 10 generations to illustrious, and once, exalted careers in Central Worlds' service branches. She had left the Training School on marital leave that had lasted two years, ending at her husband's death. A long term of hospitalization and therapy followed, during which time, the tape noted, Kira had asked for and taken medical training but did not reapply for brawn education. She had responded to a high level request to take this temporary assignment, since her training had matched perfectly the needs of this particular emergency.
Then followed a rattle of personal indices, emotional, psychological and educational, which Helva translated, as she was expected to, to mean that Kira Mirsky of Canopus would make an unusually fine brawn if she gave herself half a chance. The tape ended abruptly, as if there should be more. The omission, probably on the last tag of the mission reel, seemed to sing out its absence far louder than the tritest concluding evaluation or recommendations. Central Worlds had many devious facets and perhaps such an obvious omission was one. Surely Kira sensed it. That damned biograph left too much unsaid, particularly apparent to a brawn trainee. Helva's mind danced with the possibilities and gnawed mental teeth against the silent hold-cue. In the meantime, Helva was faced with a very awkward situation, her new partner stiff with anticipation and predisposed by Central Worlds to make a bad first adjustment to Helva. Helva made a rude, sibilant noise and was relieved to see Kira react in surprise to it
"Brains they got?" Helva demanded contemptuously. "I don't call that a proper tape. They forgot half the garbage anyway. Ssscheh!" and she repeated her exasperation noise. "Oh, well, I expect we'll do fine together if only because they left out the usual nonsense. Besides, the mission is temporary."
Kira said nothing, but the woodenness left her slender body as if an anticipated ordeal had been canceled. She swallowed hard, licking her lips nervously, still unsure of her position, having steeled her nerves for something unpleasant.
"Let's get the cargo aboard and turn me into a rocking ship."
Kira rose, her body awkward, but she managed to smile at Heiva's column. "With pleasure. Have your holds been outfitted?"
" 'With yards and yards of lacing and a bicycle built for two on it,' " Helva replied, quipping from an ancient patter song. She was determined to establish a comfortable empathy.
Kira's smile was less tentative and her body motion became more fluid.
"Yes, it would look like that, I guess."
"Of course I've never seen a bicycle built for two."
"Or a purple cow?" and Kira giggled girlishly.
"Hmmm. Purple cow, my dear brawn, is an all too apt analogy for our present occupation," Helva replied, ignoring the edge to Kira's laughter. "And don't tell me I'll have room for 300,000 mechanical teats in the cargo space Central Worlds saw fit to give me."
"Oh, no," Kira said, "We don't have but the first 100,000 accounted for as of the time the tape was cut. We'll swing out from Regulus toward Nekkar, picking up donations as we go, deliver them within the 4-week time limit when the fetuses must be either implanted or decanted, and swing around the Wheel until we do meet the quota."
Helva knew this from the tape. "Three hundred thousand isn't a very big number for a planetary population of a million that needs to expand."
"My dear KH-834," and Kira savored the name, "the word 'temporary' particularly when used by our beloved Service, has elastic qualities of infinite expansion. Also, another team, with drone transports, is recruiting orphans from unsocialized worlds to insure the proper age variations. But born children aren't our concern."
"The heavens be praised!" Helva muttered under her breath. She did not have room to transport many active live bodies nor the inclination, not so soon after Ravel.
Kira smiled back at Helva over her shoulder as she contacted the Hospital Unit to request transfer.
"Will you activate the pumping equipment?" she asked Helva, who was in the process of doing just that.
The miles of plastic tubing, once filled with the tiny sacs of fertilized ova, would contain the nutritive and amniotic fluids necessary for the growth of the embryos.
The continuous ribbon of tiny compartments, each with its minute living organism, was prepared for the voyage with the caution and care of a major surgical operation on a head of planet. Each segment must contact an intake point for the nutritive fluid and an outgo valve for the dispersal of wastes. Each meter of ribbon was inspected to insure that the proper contact was made. The ribbon and its fluids as well as the encasing tube buffered the embryos with more invulnerability against the rigors of space travel than had they been carried in a natural womb. As long as the KH-834 made the journey to Nekkar within the 4 weeks, all 30,000 fetuses would live to be born.
It became apparent to Helva that Kira was dedicated, in a detached if professional way, to the assignment. Central Worlds might be relying on a maternal instinct as additional insurance for the mission. Helva, to her inner amusement, found herself, the pituitarily inhibited shell-person, rising nobly to the challenge. Kira, obviously young enough to some day enjoy motherhood, was completely uninvolved. Yet the affinity Helva felt toward these minute voyagers was basically a shell reaction. They were, after all, encapsulated as she was, the difference being that they would one day burst from their scientific husks, as she never could nor even desired to. Still, she felt a growing protectiveness, above and beyond the ordinary, toward her passengers. The situation didn't appear to touch Kira's psyche, and that puzzled Helva.